UKIP results shame the left

socialistresistance.org, 3 May 2013

The publication's own web text.

Phil Hearse wrote this piece for his site Crisis and Revolt. The worst possible response to the local council elections in which UKIP won 25% of the vote would be complacency. For this result is shameful for both Labour and for the left-of-Labour left. While it’s true that the mainly rural areas and small town being polled are the heartland of sections of the petty bourgeoisie and not at all representative of the electorate in general, for all that the result is dispiriting and frustrating.

This vote shows who is on the offensive politically, even if the vote is untypical of Britain as a whole. It reveals once again the chosen terrain for all of right-wing reaction in Britain – nationalism, xenophobia and racism – and the mass base it has. And it shows the terrible weakness of Labour’s ‘alternative’ and the absence of a coherent left at the electoral level – mainly as a result of division and futile sectarian factionalism which has sabotaged unity initiatives over the last 20 years.